What I Never Had
by LisaT
Summary: PC. Takes place just after 'The Naked Now.' Warning: angsty AU type story. Not fluffy at all. Please R


Warning: this is an angsty AU story. It is not fluffy. Told from Picard's POV.

_**What I Never Had **_

"Can everyone confirm that all systems are functionally normally after our experience last week?" I ask.

One by one, my senior officers nod, and I look from face to face, noting how after six months they are beginning to look comfortingly familiar.

My First Officer, young, keen, and refreshingly independent, nods towards Data, the android. "Thanks to Data, the computer system suffered no harm. I've never seen such fast work!" he adds admiringly.

Data cocks his head and looks at Commander Riker. "I believe it is appropriate for me to thank you for the compliment sir, but I must remind you that you and Wesley Crusher were equally valuable in restoring the computer systems."

Across the table from him, Dr Crusher beams at this praise of her son, and I glance furtively at her, enjoying the way her face lights up. She looks like the Beverly of my memory, I think, glancing at her again, her aristocratically beautiful features enlivened by her smile, her eyes glowing with a warmth and delight that used to be ever-present, and now is there only when she speaks to or of her son...

I realise that everyone is looking at me, and that my empathic counsellor, Deanna Troi, is watching me closely with those knowing dark eyes. I shift, wishing that Starfleet had chosen not to assign the Betazoid woman here. And yet.. I had demanded the best, and Counsellor Deanna Troi is the best. Just as Beverly Crusher is the best in her field, and guilt washes over me again as I remember how I tried to block her assignment here.

"If there's nothing else?" I bark, wanting this meeting to finish.

My senior staff murmur negatively and stand to leave.

"Dismissed!" I tell them, and one by one they file out of the conference room.

I swing my chair about to look out of the window, enjoying a few moments of solitude with the eternal stars outside. My scientific mind reminds me that they are not, in fact, eternal, but to human comprehension..

My philosophical musings are interrupted by a soft sound behind me, and I spin the chair around, annoyed.

Dr Crusher's smile robs me of my words.

"Dr Crusher," I say, trying to show neither my surprise nor the frisson of discomfort I feel when we are alone. Almost at once I am ashamed. I asked her, six months ago, if we could be friends, if we could put the past behind us, and she agreed gladly. The friendship has gone no farther; since the death of her husband under my command nearly a decade ago, I have forgotten the ways of friendship, how to be a friend, or how to accept it. I force myself to relax now and return her smile.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?" I ask, trying to keep my tone light.

She shifts position, seems nervous. She takes a step forward, and then back. Politely, I try not to notice her indecision and wait. After a moment, I see her take a deep breath and move towards me, standing by the chair closest to me.

"Permission to sit, sir?" she says formally.

I nod. "Of course." I try to speak softly, ease the formality that has grown between us.

We sit in silence. I am surprised to realise that it is, in fact, a comfortable silence. I find myself remembering our old friendship, in the days before Wesley was born, when it was Jack, Beverly and I...

The silence lengthens, seems no longer comfortable. "Doctor?" I prompt, seeing her deep in thought. To my surprise, my voice does not rouse her from her reverie. "Beverly?" I dare. It is the first time I have used her name since...

_...A vague memory flashes into my mind... Myself, bending informally over her desk in sickbay, she stretching her long body towards me, a flirtatious smile on her lips and in her eyes.. I call her 'Beverly' and she responds by using my own name, so rarely spoken, so rarely heard..._

"Jean-Luc."

For a moment I think it is my memories, the images in my head. Then I realise that the soft voice is real. I look up, my surprise showing.

"It wasn't a dream," she says gently.

I move in my seat, pull my uniform down. "What wasn't?"

She colours. "What you're thinking. Remembering. It wasn't a dream. Any of it."

I feel the heat rise in my own face. Some of those 'dreams' had been extremely vivid, enacting fantasies I thought I'd put behind me the day I returned Jack Crusher's body to her. Surely...? Another memory flashes through my brain..

_...Beverly walking towards me, in my ready room, her hair swaying about her face, her eyes glowing, her face flushed and damp with a sheen of sweat... "I've become infected myself," she says, moving closer... "..like intoxication... the same lack of good judgement...I find you extremely, extremely-" and then she'd come to stop centimetres, millimetres away from me. Myself paralysed, wanting to go, wanting to stay, to lean closer...Then she'd said, "Captain, my dear Captain.."_

"Captain," she says now, returning me to the present.

I force myself to exhale, seeing the worried, professional look in her eye. "It wasn't a dream?" I manage.

"No, Jean-Luc." I note that she seems more comfortable with using my first name than I am with hers.

"It all happened," she tells me. Only the faintest tremor in her voice betrays her uncertainty. She meets my eyes with that searing blue gaze. "Everything," she whispers.

_...She stands against the door, tugging at the collar of her uniform, pulling the zip down to reveal several enticing centimetres of delicate flesh...I swallow.. "You owe me something," she tells me, as if I didn't already know._

_"I'm a woman, I haven't had the comfort of a husband, a man.." Her hand lingers at her neck, at the hollow at the base of her slender throat. "Doctor," I implore her hoarsely, and then, compelled, I pull her back into my ready room and snap the privacy lock on..._

"We..?" I stammer, praying she'll say no. Only she doesn't.

I look at her and realise the colour has gone, that her face seems white and tense. She hesitates and nods.

"Here's the proof," she says quietly, handing me a padd.

I look at it and my world crashes around me. "This isn't possible," I breathe.

"I'm afraid it's only too possible," she tells me drily. "Apparently, our contraceptive implants were also affected." She shrugs, almost nonchalantly.

"What are you going to do?" I ask, trying to sound casual.

Her eyes widen. "Are you asking me if I'm going to keep it?"

I find myself unable to meet her stare. "I suppose so."

"You mean you wouldn't object if I decided to terminate?" she asks, incredulous. "Kill your child?"

"It's not a child," I mutter rebelliously, too startled to think about what I'd said, only eager to defend myself . "Just a cluster of cells."

She slams her fist on the table, making me jump. "Even a cluster of cells is a life!" she snaps, her voice tense. "And I won't terminate. I don't agree with it, on principle, and even if I did-." Her voice becomes harsh, as if she's struggling with tears. "I thought you might like the idea of being a father, of not being alone."

Something in me snaps. The interior sound is so loud that I half expect her to react. "Is that why you slept with me?" I ask her. "Because you thought I was lonely? Felt sorry for me?" I realise I'm leaning forward, almost yelling in her face.

She shrinks back in her chair. "Jean-Luc-"

The memories rush over me again, and I lean even closer, close enough to see the whites of her eyes, hear her breathing. "You seduced me," I say, my voice hoarse with horror, with guilt. My best friend's wife.

Her eyes, so close, reflect my emotions, and something else.

She pushed her chair back, and I think she's moving away. But she isn't. Almost immediately she moves forward, almost until our noses our touching. I realise she's equalised the situation.

"I think there was some seducing on both sides, Captain," she tells me softly, sending me the merest flicker of blue twinkle, her body relaxing fractionally, almost suggesting that I relax too and play the game.

But I won't. She was my best friend's wife. Sleeping with her was wrong. Having a child with her unthinkable. Dammit, I don't even like children. It's all I can do to bring myself to speak civilly to her son. Jack's son. Wesley.

After an achingly long moment, she pulls back again, crosses her arms, becomes the Chief Medical Officer.

"We weren't thinking straight," she tells me coolly. "The effect of the virus, remember? It acts like intoxication. Neither of us can be held responsible for our actions."

"You managed to think straight well enough to find the cure!" I throw at her.

She gasps, and her cheeks turn rosy with a furious blush. "How dare you! Are you suggesting I exaggerated the effect it had on me just to get you into bed?"

"Didn't you?" I fling back at her. "You were sorry for me, and you wanted a man- you said so yourself!"

She drops her face in her hands. "Did I? Gods, how embarrassing!"

For a moment I wonder if she really said those words, or if I'm imagining them. Then her head snaps up again.

"However, that's irrelevant. The fact remains that I'm carrying your child. What are you going to do about it?" Her tone is anything but respectful.

I sit back and say nothing for a long moment, watching the defiance and fury drain out of her. Finally, I speak. I say the words.

"Nothing, Doctor," I tell her flatly. "Absolutely nothing. I don't want children. Don't like them. It's all yours."

She watches me through eyes that I can see are glistening. "I can't believe I thought we could be friends," she whispers. "How wrong could I be? Very well, Captain, I'll deal with it. I'll get- we'll all get- off your ship and out of your life." She spins around on her heel and leaves the room.

A fortnight later she transfers off the ship, and I tell myself I'm relieved. Now, there'll be no disturbances of either the inner or outer variety. No Beverly in sickbay, in meetings, taunting me, no Wesley to rub salt in an old wound... Everything can become what it should be.

Only it doesn't.

I hear when the child is born. I hear of the milestones in it's life. Part of me is grateful to her for that touch of grace, touch of pity. Sometimes, I wish I could reach out to her, to them... and then I remember the sense of guilt, and the man I wronged. I do nothing, say nothing. Live alone. Always alone, in splendid isolation. Like the stars.

Days, weeks, months, years go by, and I know, now, what I've lost. Or rather, what I never had- or allowed myself to have.

END.


End file.
